How to Hire Support Employees that Guarantee Positive Online Reviews

Some, once they’ve paid for your product, become demanding and difficult. These customers pick at your support staff, slowly wearing them down.

When this happens, conflict is inevitable.

Your support staff is your first line of defense. They experience abuse on a regular basis. Customers approach from a neutral place of need and occasionally a negative place of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

Can your support staff thrive in that environment or…

Will your support staff make things worse?

Most of us know it’s important to choose the right support staff. We hear legendary stories about amazing support teams and how they’re (rightfully) rewarded with amazing reviews and more business.

We all know what a horrible customer service experience looks like. We’ve also seen the negative reviews that come with horrible service, and we know what it’s like to deal with terrible support staff.

How do we find and hire amazing support staff?

More specifically, how do we hire support employees who’ll virtually guarantee we receive positive online reviews?

It’s simple.

Step #1: Use OCEAN to find amazing support employees

The big five personality traits, listed under the acronym OCEAN, gives you the keys you need to find amazing support employees.

Openness to experience measures intellectual curiosity. Imagination, independence and variety are hallmarks of this personality type.

Conscientiousness describes a person who is dependable, ambitious and dutiful, showing self-discipline, and a preference for planning.

Extraversion refers to the energetic, passionate, and fun-loving life of the party. These employees are often seen as talkative and domineering connectors.

Agreeableness refers to the empathetic, compassionate and cooperative peacemakers among us. These employees tend to be helpful, trusting and pleasant.

Neuroticism describes the tendency for a person to experience unpleasant emotions (e.g. anger, fear, depression and anxiety) more easily than others around them.

So which personality traits are most important? Which one will lead you to the right support employee?

1. Agreeableness. Compassion and empathy are standard requirements for support employees. These employees have higher levels of compassion and politeness so they’re much easier to get along with.

2. Conscientiousness. Higher levels of conscientiousness means your support employees will do what it takes to take care of the customer and your business.

While the other factors are helpful, agreeableness and conscientiousness are most important. Here’s the thing about that though.

You need them both.

High on agreeableness, low on conscientiousness? These support employees are far more likely to become doormats, handing out too many concessions, discounts and incentives. They’re routinely abused and mistreated by customers.

High on conscientiousness, low on agreeableness? These support employees can be domineering, authoritative and brutal. They’re often inflexible, cold and matter-of-fact. This means they’re less likely to convey empathy and compassion to customers.

Step #2: Ignore personality, recruit everyone

When you’re looking for amazing support employees it’s a good idea to cast a wide net. The usual recruitment channels, Job boards, want ads, and recruitment campaigns, are great ways to fill your funnel.

Use broad sources like Indeed, CareerBuilder, or Monster to maximize the number of candidates you’re able to find and niche sites like SupportDriven or CustomerServiceJobs.com for specialty searches.

There’s one channel that works best.

Employee referrals.

Once you have a few employees you can ask them to recruit like-minded employees.

Your new employees need to feel accepted and part of the group. But why does that matter?

Support employees accepted by the group receive greater access to information and resources. Emotional acceptance empowers your team, enabling them to do an amazing job for you and your customers.

Here’s the thing with acceptance.

It needs trust to survive. Your support employees need to be able to figure things out for themselves. Once you’ve trained them, given them a framework to follow, they need autonomy.

For instance, developing useful protocols, FAQs and the empowerment is key to building trust. Create an environment where A players employees help to shape the rules and best practices of the support team. This could be as simple as employees adding to your knowledge base or as complex as auditing support team systems and procedures.

When employees have ownership it stops being your business, it becomes our business. A players become fully integrated into your organization and your support time thrives.

What if you do the opposite?

Attempt to force arbitrary or oppressive rules and policies on them and you limit an A player’s ability to serve.

Comcast bills customer $1,775 incorrectly withdrawing their “early termination fee.” Comcast admitted the money shouldn’t have debited from their account but customer service reps refused to issue a refund, telling customers to “take it up with their bank.”

At that point, Carlo springs into action. He asks a co-worker to repeatedly call the number. Carlo gets a hold of the driver who’s on the other side of New York City, agrees to meet him half way, pays the driver for his trouble, recovers the woman’s purse and returns it to her…

Right as she’s finished her lunch.

Here’s what makes this story incredible. Similar situations, stories of legendary service, occur routinely on a daily basis at each of Danny’s restaurants.

Give your A players the permission to be Legendary.

Recognize and reward them when they go above and beyond to serve others. Protect, champion and fight for them and they’ll fight for you.

Going above and beyond, routinely.

This is the secret to amazing positive reviews. Recruit the right people, create the right environment and you’ll attract a flood of positive reviews.

Customers can be tough

Your support staff is your first line of defense. Customers approach from a neutral place of need and occasionally a negative place of unhappiness and dissatisfaction.

Your support staff makes all the difference.

Choose the right support staff, in the right environment. Do it well and the next legendary support story (and the flood of positive reviews that come with it) will be yours.